1. Field
The disclosure relates generally to integrated circuits, silicon chip technology and more specifically to coupling of optical signals to and from a silicon photonic chip.
2. Description of the Related Art
The communication bandwidth between computers and within a computer is playing an increasing role in a system's overall performance. The trend towards multi-core processors and multiple processors per computer requires an increase in communication between processors and between a processor and its memory. Electrical data links perform well over short distances, but electrical data links reach a limit as the link distance and frequency increases. Optical data links over optical fiber are capable of high speed communication with low transmission loss over long distances. However, silicon photonic chips are expensive compared with their electrical counterparts.
Silicon (Si) photonics is a technology that is under worldwide research and development due to its promise of delivering high performance optical components built in silicon chip technologies. Silicon photonic is the study and application of photonic systems that use silicon as an optical medium. The silicon is patterned with sub-micrometer precision into silicon photonic structures. The silicon typically lies on top of a layer of silica in what is known as silicon-on-insulator (SOI).